That is normal interrogation techniques, Flynn admitted he worked with the Russians and Turkey as a double agent while being the National Security Advisor...they got the tapes and the docs he did it, the judge even questioned why they didn't charge him with Treason, and that Judge get's to decide what happens...while judges normally follow requests I would bet he is going to make them explain in detail why an admitted traitor shouldn't go to jail and that will be painful for Barr and Justice...

The Trump administration is making ever louder pronouncements casting blame on China for the Covid-19 pandemic, aiming to sidestep domestic criticism of the president's own response, tarnish China's global reputation and give the United States leverage on trade and other aspects of US-China competition.

President Donald Trump has vowed to penalise China for what US officials have increasingly described as a pattern of deceit that denied the world precious time to prepare for the pandemic. The opening salvo isn't in the form of tariffs or sanctions, but in a one-sided accounting of China's behaviour that could yank the Chinese lower on the global reputation meter.

The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House have all launched public efforts in recent days to lay bare what they say is clear evidence that China tried to mask the scale of the outbreak and then refused to provide critical access to US and global scientists that could have saved lives. More than 250,000 people have died globally from Covid-19, including more than 68,000 in the US.

Alex Brandon/APPresident Donald Trump has repeatedly been blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic.

The Trump administration, a senior administration official says, is trying to convince the world that China isn't playing by the same rules as everyone else, and that may be the biggest punishment for an intensely proud emerging superpower. The official was not authorised to publicly discuss the issue and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

To that end, the administration has pushed its China criticism beyond the bounds of established evidence.

Trump and allies repeat and express confidence in an unsubstantiated theory linking the origin of the outbreak to a possible accident at a Chinese virology laboratory. US officials say they are still exploring the subject and describe the evidence as purely circumstantial. But Trump, aides say, has embraced the notion to further highlight China's lack of transparency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC's “This Week with George Stephanopoulos'' there is “enormous evidence'' the virus began in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The institute, which is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is about 13 kilometres from a market considered a possible source for the virus. It has done groundbreaking research tracing the likely origins of the Sars virus, finding new bat viruses and discovering how they could jump to people.

Pompeo said China has denied the US and World Health Organisation (WHO) access to the lab. But Trump says he has seen information that gives him a high degree of confidence the Wuhan institute is the origin of the virus. Asked why he has such confidence, Trump said: “I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that.''

Health officials are dubious.

“From our perspective, this remains speculative,'' WHO emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan says of the lab theory. “But like any evidence-based organisation, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus.''

Trump's ouster of more than a handful of top intelligence officials has given him an additional credibility problem when it comes to the administration's pronouncements based on intelligence.

“These purges have already, I fear, politicized the intelligence community's work in key ways,'' said Mike Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama who now hosts the “Intelligence Matters'' podcast. One of our institutions critical to the pursuit of the truth has a large crack in it.''

China strongly rejects Trump's version of events.

On Monday, China's official Global Times newspaper said Pompeo was making “groundless accusations'' against Beijing by suggesting the coronavirus was released from a Chinese laboratory.

The populist tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily said the claims were a politically motivated attempt to preserve Trump's presidency and divert attention from the US administration's own failures in dealing with the outbreak.

APChina continues to deny Donald Trump's claims.

While Trump's and Pompeo's critical statements have been at the forefront of the administration's anti-China rhetoric, US government agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, have often been compiling publicly available information to try to support the allegations.

DHS documents, obtained by The Associated Press on Sunday and Monday, accuse the Chinese government of intentionally downplaying the scope and severity of the spread of the virus in order to buy up international stocks of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies needed to combat the disease.

Although any country might be expected to purchase large quantities of materials necessary to combat a major threat to public health, the administration has sought to portray China's actions as secret, irresponsible and dangerous for the rest of the world.

One such document, drawing from open source material, emphasises reports about the disappearance of Chinese doctors who raised early alarms about the virus and the response, the Chinese government's alleged suppression and destruction of virus samples and closure of relevant laboratories.

It also reports on China's early resistance to acknowledging human-to-human transmission of Covid-19, the failure of authorities to immediately block domestic or international travel out of Wuhan and China's opposition to calls for an international inquiry into the pandemic.

The focus on China comes as Trump's own record has faced persistent scrutiny. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told the AP on Monday Trump was first briefed by intelligence agencies about the virus on January 23, then again on January 28.

Providing a rare glimpse into one of the most sensitive US government practises, the highly classified presidential daily briefing, McEnany said it was only in that second briefing that Trump was told that the virus was spreading outside China.

Trump, she added, was told all the deaths were still occurring inside China and that Beijing was not sharing key data. Days later, Trump moved to severely curtail travel to the US from China. The White House's descriptions of the briefing were prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a spokesperson said.

But reference to the coronavirus was included in at least passing mention in the written version of the intelligence briefing on January 11 and January 14, according to a senior US government official within the intelligence community, who said other officials, including Defence Secretary Mark Esper, were briefed.

Officials emphasised much of the US government's attention during that period was on Iran, after the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani in a January 3 US drone strike and the subsequent downing of Ukrainian airliner over Tehran.

"Why is it that all of the political pundits & consultants that I beat so easily & badly, people that charged their clients far more than their services were worth, have become so totally “unhinged” when it come to your favorite President, me. These people are stone cold crazy!"

If ever there was an example of a president that should lose his job on the grounds of mental illness, than this tweet provides conclusive proof that Trump is the one. I mean it's all there - paranoia, megalomania, narcissism, compulsive mendacity self-denial, etc, etc...

_________________"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

In a leaked conference call with former members of his administration, the ex-president said: "What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy - that has become a stronger impulse in American life."

Mr. Obama said that the world's response to the COVID-19 outbreak had been "anaemic and spotty".

Although he said the fallout from coronavirus in the US would have been bad "even with the best of governments", he added: "It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset - of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' - when that mindset is operationalised in our government."

The former president also vowed he will be "campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden" ahead of November's election.

With more than 75,000 deaths, the US has had more fatalities from COVID-19 than any other country. Almost 1.3 million people have been infected there so far.

Mr. Obama has made few public comments about America's response to the pandemic, even as Mr. Trump accused his administration of failing to stockpile supplies.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany has described Mr. Trump's handling of the coronavirus as "unprecedented" - and claimed the president's actions have helped save American lives.

"While Democrats were pursuing a sham witch hunt against President Trump, President Trump was shutting down travel from China. While Democrats encouraged mass gatherings, President Trump was deploying PPE, ventilators, and testing across the country," she said.

Polls suggest that the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is tight, with just six months to go until Americans cast their vote.

Mr. Obama's remarks were first reported by Yahoo News, and the former president's office has declined to comment on the leak.

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.

The trove of emails show the nation's top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.

The document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.

This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.

As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump's inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.

Three days later, CDC’s upper management sent the more than 60-page report with attached flow charts to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a step usually taken only when agencies are seeking final White House approval for documents they have already cleared.

The 17-page version later released by The AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, “Steps for All Americans in Every Community,” geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.

On April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees — including one for meat packing plants.

Redfield’s emailed comments contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.

Two days later, on April 26, the CDC still had not received any word from the administration, according to the internal communications. Robert McGowan, the CDC chief of staff who was shepherding the guidance through the OMB, sent an email seeking an update. “We need them as soon as possible so that we can get them posted,” he wrote to Nancy Beck, an OMB staffer.

Beck said she was awaiting review by the White House Principals Committee, a group of top White House officials. “They need to be approved before they can move forward. WH principals are in touch with the task force so the task force should be aware of the status,” Beck wrote to McGowan.

The next day, April 27, Satya Thallam of the OMB sent the CDC a similar response: “The re-opening guidance and decision tree documents went to a West Wing principals committee on Sunday. We have not received word on specific timing for their considerations.

“However, I am passing along their message: they have given strict and explicit direction that these documents are not yet cleared and cannot go out as of right now — this includes related press statements or other communications that may preview content or timing of guidances.”

OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel said the office has reviewed hundreds of pages of pandemic-related documents.

"The initial submission to OMB is the start of the deliberative process, not the end, and everyone knows that,” Semmel said in an email.

According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.

On April 30 the CDC’s documents were killed for good.

The agency had not heard any specific critiques from either the White House Principals Committee or the coronavirus task force in days, so officials asked for an update.

“The guidance should be more cross-cutting and say when they should reopen and how to keep people safe. Fundamentally, the Task Force cleared this for further development, but not for release,” wrote Quinn Hirsch, a staffer in the White House's office of regulatory affairs (OIRA), in an email to the CDC’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.

CDC staff working on the guidance decided to try again.

The administration had already released its Opening Up America Again Plan, and the clock was ticking. Staff at CDC thought if they could get their reopening advice out there, it would help communities do so with detailed expert help.

But hours later on April 30, CDC’s Chief of Staff McGowan told CDC staff that neither the guidance documents nor the decision trees “would ever see the light of day,” according to three officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

The next day, May 1, the emails showed, a staffer at CDC was told “we would not even be allowed to post the decision trees. We had the team (exhausted as they are) stand down.”

The CDC’s guidance was shelved. Until May 7.

That morning The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration had buried the guidance, even as many states had started allowing businesses to reopen.

After the story ran, the White House called the CDC and ordered them to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency resent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.

“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.”

Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller contributed to this story from Washington.

So many people tried to help Trump in this crisis. He declined.Narcissic to the point of letting folks catch the COVID-19 and die from it.If I were near Trump, I'd kick his ass. He'd get to the moon.His incompetence is amazing.In a normal fair trial, he would have been impeached.That could have save thousands of lives.

I think Pedro agrees. . .

Just kidding. Pedro prefers to see Americans suffer and die from COVID-19.Guilty by association. . .

Highest unemployment since the Great depression. Largest market collapse ever. Almost 100k dead. Beyond stupid...

Disco Boy and Pedro must be out behind the toolshed together shooting up disinfectant and snorting detergent.

I kid you not I was JUST thinking this morning "I wonder if SPACEBROTHER is still around..." funny when things like that happen. Welcome back!

Thanks! Like everybody else just hunkered down and social distancing from the Trump idiots who think it's a hoax and are infecting everybody with the Trump virus.

I've been out of work since March 12th. Nonessential. My industry was the first hit and will be the last to recover. Probably won't be back to full employed status until 2021 as my contracts and calls pretty much got wiped out.

As much as being unemployed sucks, staying in and being safe is more important. If these Trump assholes want to infect each other then let them. Stay the fuck away from me.

"Looks like someone is having one of those special Sunday’s that only a 73 year-old drug addict with a lifetime of criminality and sexual assaults can have when he’s charged with leading the country during a pandemic but is more concerned with his own corruption." - Noel Casler, today

Coronavirus: White House Covid-19 trouble is microcosm of what America facesAamer Maghani and Kevin Freking·19:27, May 12th 2020

APThe White House is emerging as an imperfect microcosm of the challenges that all Americans face in trying to keep the coronavirus at bay as huge swaths of the nation reopen.

The White House is increasingly looking like an imperfect microcosm of the challenges that all Americans face in keeping the coronavirus at bay as huge swaths of the nation move to reopen.

Two aides who work in the White House complex are known to have tested positive in the past week for the coronavirus despite layers of security there, including access to rapid testing, temperature checks for all who enter and social distancing protocols.

US President Donald Trump on Monday told reporters that in terms of testing, "we have met the moment and we have prevailed." But the ability of the virus to infiltrate the White House underscores the risks for Americans at workplaces, schools and elsewhere.

Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University, described the White House as demonstrating the "best" and "worst" of virus mitigation.

"Even with great availability of testing and the presence of the top public health experts in the world, the virus has found its way into the White House," Gostin said. "What's worse is they've shown the rest of the country the guidelines they want the rest of America to follow, but they are unable to do it themselves."

Here's a look at some of the ways the White House efforts to stem the virus illustrate the rough road ahead for all Americans as they try to return to work with the virus lurking in the background:

TESTING LIMITS

Throughout the pandemic, Trump has repeatedly boasted that the US has the best testing. That's true at the White House. Anyone who comes into close contact with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence must take a test before meeting with them.

But even with robust testing, the virus still managed to reach the West Wing. White House officials said one of the aides who tested positive, Katie Miller, tested negative one day before she got a positive test result on Friday.

Ordinary Americans being expected to go back to work, like those at meatpacking plants that Trump has ordered to remain open - won't have that kind of access to testing.

And testing, even when you have it, isn't perfect. Dr Francis Collins, director for the US National Institutes of Health, said during congressional testimony last week that the Abbott ID Now machine, used by the White House to perform rapid coronavirus tests, can sometimes fail to detect a patient who is positive.

The incubation period for the virus is days long, so it is possible that a person who had contracted coronavirus could initially test negative.

SOCIAL DISTANCING CHALLENGES

Just as in many workplaces that are open, there is no shortage of reminders at the White House complex to practice social distancing and practice good hygiene. A directive was issued to White House staffers on Monday requiring everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask.

Some aides say they already wear masks when they can't maintain 1.8 metres of distance from their colleagues. Signage reminding staffers to follow Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, including frequent hand-washing, is posted around the White House.

But the White House complex is packed with hundreds of workers during normal times. In parts of the complex, aides and workers are shoulder-to-shoulder when walking through narrow hallways and share crowded work spaces.

"It's a small, crowded place," Trump senior adviser Kevin Hassett acknowledged in a CBS Face the Nation interview. "It's a little bit risky. But you have to do it because you have to serve your country."

CONTACT TRACING

After Miller, the Pence aide, tested positive last week, White House officials moved quickly to track down six of her colleagues who had been in close contact with her in recent days, just as they were getting ready to fly with the vice president to Iowa.

Her colleagues deplaned and were tested -- and all came back negative. In the days since the positive tests of Miller and a military aide to Trump, the White House Medical Unit and CDC tracing experts have sought out for testing individuals who have had contact with the White House employees.

For cities and states, the process of identifying and testing those who may have unwittingly come in contact with infected people will be a huge undertaking. It's one that can't be skipped if reopening is going to happen before a vaccine becomes available, officials say.

On Friday, New York City - the area hardest hit by the virus in the US - announced the launch of a 1,000 person test-and-trace corps that is set to be up and running by May 25. The city has set a goal of testing 20,000 people per day by the end of May and 50,000 per day by August 1, benchmarks it sees as crucial to lowering transmissions.

TOO SOON?

Trump's drastically reduced and uncertain travel schedule shows how even the White House has struggled with the prospect of getting the president back into a regular routine.

He's made only two trips outside Washington since calling on Americans on March 13 to heed to federal guidelines to stem the virus -- a trip to an Arizona Honeywell face mask plant last week and a visit to Virginia to see off a US Naval hospital ship bound for New York to serve as a backstop for the area's hospitals.

The US president said he was planning on heading to Ohio last week, but that trip was scrapped. He is expected to travel to Pennsylvania later this week.

In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new communities across the country and the number of dead soared past 78,000, US President Donald Trump and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they characterise as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.

But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to - and asking Americans to accept - a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.

Inside the West Wing, some officials talk about the federal government's mitigation mission as largely accomplished because they believe the nation's hospitals are now equipped to meet anticipated demand - even as health officials warn the number of coronavirus cases could increase considerably in May and June as more states and localities loosen restrictions, and some mitigation efforts are still recommended as states begin to reopen.

APPresident Donald Trump participates in a tour of a Honeywell International plant that manufactures personal protective equipment.

The administration is struggling to expand the scale of testing to what experts say is necessary to reopen businesses safely, and officials have not announced any national plan for contact tracing.

Trump and some of his advisers are prioritising the psychology of the pandemic as much as, if not more than, plans to combat the virus, some aides and outside advisers said - striving to instil confidence that people can comfortably return to daily life despite the rising death toll.

On Friday, as the unemployment rate reached a historically high 14.7 per cent, Trump urged Americans to think of this period as a "transition to greatness," adding during a meeting with Republican members of Congress: "We're going to do something very fast, and we're going to have a phenomenal year next year." The president predicted the virus eventually would disappear even without a vaccine - a prediction at odds with his own science officials.

A White House spokesman defended the status of testing by pointing to comments in mid-April by two of the medical professionals on the task force, Anthony Fauci and Adm. Brett Giroir, saying there have been enough tests to safely reopen the country.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also backed the administration's response, saying, "President Trump is committed to a data-driven approach to safely reopening the country. His steadfast leadership has saved American lives, and the American people recognise his leadership."

Some of Trump's advisers described the president as glum and shellshocked by his declining popularity.

In private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to reelection to realising that he is losing to the likely Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign's internal surveys, advisers said.

He also has been fretting about the possibility that a bad outbreak of the virus this fall could damage his standing in the November election, said the advisers, who along with other aides and allies requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The president is also eager to resume political travel in June, including holding his signature rallies by the end of the summer in areas where there are few cases, advisers said.

Trump's political team has begun discussions about organising a high-dollar, in-person fundraiser next month, as well as preliminary planning about staging rallies and what sort of screenings might be necessary, according to Republican National Committee officials and outsider advisers.

One option being considered is holding rallies outdoors, rather than in enclosed arenas, a senior administration official said.

APPresident Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, April 23, 2020, in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence listens.

Officials also are forging ahead with the Republican National Convention planned for late August in Charlotte, North Carolina, albeit a potentially scaled-back version.

But Trump's outward projections of assurance and hope masked the more sober acknowledgments of some outside advisers and experts who worry the number of deaths will either stabilise around 2,000 per day or continue to climb over the next month.

"The question is, will people become anaesthetized to it? Are they willing to accept that?" said one adviser to the White House coronavirus task force who, like many others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters or offer candid assessments.

Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who has been informally advising Trump and his team, said making people comfortable returning to work and resuming normal activities will take a long time.

"I'm the biggest advocate for getting the economy up and running there is, but I have two relatives who think I'm crazy, and they're not going out of their house no matter what," Moore said.

"Just because the president and governors open up a state doesn't mean that commerce is going to instantly resume. It's not."

Inside the administration last week, there were roiling disputes over the data used by the government to track the virus as well as over possible therapeutics.

The debates underscored the administration's chronic challenges in managing the crisis, even as Trump pushes to reopen the economy.

During a task force meeting Wednesday, a heated discussion broke out between Deborah Birx, the physician who oversees the administration's coronavirus response, and Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Birx and others were frustrated with the CDC's antiquated system for tracking virus data, which they worried was inflating some statistics - such as mortality rate and case count - by as much as 25 percent, according to four people present for the discussion or later briefed on it.

Two senior administration officials said the discussion was not heated.

"There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust," Birx said, according to two of the people.

The flare-up came two days after it was reported that an internal government model, based on data from the CDC and other agencies, projected the daily death count would rise to 3,000 by June 1.

Redfield defended his agency, but there was general agreement that the CDC is in need of a digital upgrade.

Birx said in a statement: "Mortality is slowly declining each day. To keep with this trend, it is essential that seniors and those with comorbidities shelter in place and that we continue to protect vulnerable communities."

That assertion is contrary to Johns Hopkins data, which shows US daily deaths hovering close to 2,000 most days for several weeks now, and climbing higher some days last week.

Many experts also believe coronavirus deaths are actually being undercounted, with mortality data showing that US deaths soared in the early weeks of pandemic, far beyond the number attributed to covid-19.

During the same meeting, the group also found itself in a robust debate over remdesivir, an experimental drug some administration officials are optimistic could help treat patients with covid-19.

Robert Kadlec, assistant health secretary for preparedness and response, said the government had shipped remdesivir to seven states - an announcement that surprised Birx and others, who felt it was premature because they had not yet determined which states needed the drug most.

"Why would you do that?" Birx asked, referring to the supply of the drug donated by its manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, according to someone with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The next day, Vice President Mike Pence, who oversees the administration's coronavirus task force, grew frustrated when he asked for an update on distributing the drug and no one - including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar - was able to provide one, saying discussions were still ongoing.

On Saturday, HHS announced that another allocation of the drug would be sent to six states.

The task force's new strategy came amid broader internal debate about the future of the Pence-led group. On Tuesday, the New York Times first reported that the administration was talking about dismantling the task force, which Pence confirmed to reporters shortly thereafter.

The next morning, however, Trump announced on Twitter that the group would "continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN."

Administration officials stressed that the public may have an outsized impression of the task force. Its purpose was largely to provide a centralized forum for analysing virus data and crafting response plans, through daily Situation Room meetings, as well as to share information with the public through daily White House press briefings, while much of the government's substantive work took place at various agencies.

The goal behind disbanding the task force, officials argued, was simply to center all coronavirus efforts in the agencies where they could be handled more efficiently.

Whereas initially the task force found itself scrambling to deploy a whack-a-mole management effort, dealing with regular crises as they emerged - from coronavirus-infected cruise ships to the urgent need for ventilators - the administration now intends to shift its focus to what is says is more strategic longer-term planning.

"I think we're in a really good position now to be able to look around the corner and set ourselves up for the fall," said Katie Miller, Pence's press secretary.

However, White House officials declined to provide any specifics as to what the long-term strategy is, what the different plans will look like, and who is leading the various efforts.

The task force had already begun to curtail briefings, following a disastrous performance last month when Trump suggested the idea of injecting disinfectants, such as bleach, to treat the virus.

Although Trump and his aides have boasted that the number of Americans tested continues to rise - the total was 8.4 million as of Saturday - allies and other public health experts bemoan the slow pace.

They argue that the country could have tested far more people and initiated a contact tracing plan had the president and his team focused more strategically on that in recent weeks.

"It's incredibly sad and it shouldn't be the case," a former senior administration official said.

"We should have testing and contact tracing and we don't. That's a concern."

The official added, "You can't have just whatever the shiny ball is today. You have to be able to do more than one thing at a time and deal with more than one crisis point at a time."

More than anything, three advisers said, Trump is focused on how to turn the economy around and reopen the country, seeing a nascent recovery as key to getting reelected and his handling of the economy as one of his only strengths in the polls over Joe Biden.

"Given that we're going to be at 15 or 20 per cent unemployment, it is the direction of the economy, rather than the raw numbers of the economy, that I think voters will judge him on," said Neil Newhouse, a prominent GOP pollster.

The president and senior White House advisers have begun holding meetings on a range of topics other than the coronavirus, such as a session Friday on the thrift savings plan in the Oval Office and a Monday session on health care.

Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who has been running his own coronavirus effort, has begun interviewing candidates for a new position focused on finding vaccines and therapeutics, but some administration officials say it is another instance of Kushner stepping into territory he knows little about.

On Thursday afternoon, Trump huddled in the Oval Office with a mix of campaign aides and White House officials.

No one wore masks, though campaign manager Brad Parscale did tweet a photo of himself in the West Wing sporting sunglasses and a white mask with red "Trump Pence 2020" lettering.

Parscale brought five prototype campaign masks to show the president and is planning to send out 50,000 to supporters across the country.

As the president was updated on the Republican convention, various lawsuits the Republican Party and Trump campaign have launched against states over voting rules, and political ads attacking Biden over China, he appeared to be in a good mood, said three people familiar with the meeting.

But reality kept intruding.

The same day, news broke that one of Trump's personal valets, a Navy chief petty officer, had tested positive for coronavirus. And on Friday, Trump himself revealed the name of another White House staffer who had just tested positive for the virus: Miller, the vice president's press secretary.

During McEnany's press briefing Friday, Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller asked about the coronavirus cases that had infiltrated the White House, which for weeks has implemented temperature checks and virus testing for those close to the president.

"Why should the average American, whose workplace doesn't have access to these rapid tests, feel comfortable going to work if the White House isn't even safe?" Miller asked.

This may be the falsest thing Donald Trump has ever said about coronavirus

Aaron Blake·11:25, May 12 2020

President Donald Trump has made a series of obviously false claims about the coronavirus. But at Monday's (Tuesday NZ time) news briefing — the first in weeks in which Trump and coronavirus task force officials took questions — he offered perhaps his biggest whopper yet.

After being asked about a mysterious condition affecting children, then having task force member Adm. Brett Giroir correct him that the condition has actually been fatal, Trump turned to better news. Or at least what he wrongly stated was better news.

Evan Vucci/APUS President Donald Trump had to be corrected by a coronavirus task force member at Tuesday's news briefing.

"I think one of the things we're most proud of is, this just came out — deaths per 100,000 people, death," Trump said. "So deaths per 100,000 people — Germany and the United States are at the lowest rung of that ladder. Meaning low is a positive, not a negative. Germany, the United States are the two best in deaths per 100,000 people, which frankly, to me, that's perhaps the most important number there is."

It would be perhaps the most important number if it were anywhere close to true.

It's true that, while the United States has the most confirmed coronavirus cases and the most confirmed coronavirus deaths, it lags behind some Western European countries when it comes to per-capita deaths. The raw number can be deceiving when it comes to the total impact on countries.

But the United States is nowhere close to having one of the lowest per-capita death rates. In fact, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States ranks ninth-highest out of more than 140 countries for which data are available.

Even if you focus on Western Europe — which Trump didn't — the United States ranks behind the following countries on per capita deaths:

Germany

Switzerland

Portugal

Poland

Austria

Denmark

Finland

Norway

Iceland

Pairing the United States with Germany is another puzzling decision. Germany is one of the envies of the Western world when it comes to its coronavirus response, having ramped up testing very early and then dealing with a far less significant outbreak than its neighbours. But putting the U.S. next to it is ridiculous; Germany has about nine deaths per 100,000 people, as compared with about 24 per 100,000 people in the United States.

At least with many of Trump's other claims, there's the possibility they might feasibly be true once we learn about the situation in this country or what lay ahead. For instance, Trump also said Monday that people who want to return to work can get tested daily "very soon," which we're clearly a very long way away from.

This claim, though, makes you wonder where Trump is getting his data on coronavirus deaths and the size of the outbreak compared to the rest of the world.

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